The Simple, Yet Forgotten Art of Observing #shorts

I arrived slightly early this morning, so I decided to use my time purposefully by finding a spot at Toastbox to sit down. I ordered an Iced Milo (both as a reward & to help replenish the energy used in my early morning workout🏃), and decided to take a photo of the cafe & the people within it. I intentionally took it at my eye level because this is exactly what I am seeing.

On my train ride over this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a pattern that I’ve been recognizing in recent months and even years. Within the UX industry, I’ve been noticing this trend where UX professionals are becoming more and more obsessed about being good at their design/technical skills. They would devote hundreds, thousands of hours into becoming very proficient with a design tool like Figma or Sketch (which are great designer-centric tools), but the one thing that none of them is talking about is also the most basic skill of all, the art of observing.

The Key Ingredient to Becoming Great at UX

In my nearly two decades of pioneering the UX industry, I have witness and met with a lot of great UX professionals. At the end of the day, I think the single, most powerful ingredient that goes into making someone great at UX isn’t their design and/or technical skills. Being great in those is definitely a necessity if you are thinking about wanting to be among one of the greats. But no, skill proficiency alone isn’t going to make you great in this industry.

To be great, you have to start by observing more.

The art of observing is something that should come naturally for us. But in order for it to feel natural, we have to start by first developing & practicing it. Set aside time, either daily or week, be it during lunch time, or in the evenings over a frappe. Keep a physical notebook with you and note down everything that you are seeing.

First time that you try to “observe” might feel a little tedious. And to be fair, seeing patterns and recognizing them can take time to train. As much as this ability comes more naturally for me, the truth is I have to continue to exercise it and to keep using it like a muscle. When we stop observing, our pattern recognition ability can deteriorate too.

So, my career advice for any UX professionals reading this right now: “Stop burying your head in your monitor screens. Instead, close the lid, put it aside, and replace it with a good ole notebook, pen and just look up.”